Repository & Metadata Systems Manager at WGBH

Description

WGBH enriches people's lives through programs and services that educate, inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of learning, and the power of diverse perspectives.

DEPARTMENT OVERVIEW

The Media Library and Archives (MLA) establishes the policies and procedures for the access, acquisition, intellectual control, and preservation of WGBH’s physical media and digital production and administrative assets. The MLA also offers production organization of archival materials from projects start up to shut down, research services, rights clearances, and licenses WGBH stock footage. The MLA goal is to promote the efficient and effective use and re-purposing of the WGBH physical and digital assets. The WGBH Media Library and Archives is responsible for acquiring, creating access to and preserving the program media materials and administrative records generated during the production of radio and television programs for WGBH.

WGBH and the Library of Congress steward the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), an initiative seeking to preserve and make accessible significant historical content created by public media. To date, we have digitized more than 100,000 public television and radio programs and original materials. The entire collection is available for research on location at WGBH and the Library of Congress, and more than 50,000 programs are available anywhere in the US in our Online Reading Room at americanarchive.org.

JOB OVERVIEW

Reporting to the Associate Director, the MLA Repository and Metadata Systems Manager will supervise and manage the MLA developers, website and repository development, assigned AAPB projects, and metadata processes and structure for the MLA. 

RESPONSIBILITIES

DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT

• Supervise MLA developers and lead iterative, continuous integration development workflows for MLA and AAPB projects.
• Oversee and supervise developer work on MLA and AAPB web and software development projects, including maintaining the backlog, prioritizing work, analyzing development approaches with the team, and communicating with the Associate Director and other staff  on priorities, deadlines, challenges, and future needs. 
• Communicate with MLA and AAPB staff to gather new use cases for technical systems and design solutions to address those needs.

METADATA MANAGEMENT (MLA & AAPB)

• In coordination with the Associate Director and other team members, lead and be responsible for all decision-making regarding metadata creation and management in the MLA and AAPB.
• Manage descriptive metadata for AAPB acquisitions, including normalization, ingest, and working with collection donors. They will also manage evolving data models, metadata application profiles, and workflow processes for MLA and AAPB repositories and websites. This includes developing best practices for metadata ingestion, establishing and carrying out workflows for generating and acquiring new forms of metadata (like transcripts and other time-based descriptive data), designing and implementing enhanced approaches to displaying metadata to end users,  and working with staff on other projects to ensure that metadata is created and managed according to specifications.
• Collaborate with the project team on technical projects, including websites, repositories, and innovative metadata generation, to support preservation of and access to the WGBH archival collection.
• Coordinate with internal and external partners working on these projects and will be responsible for liaising with the partners and MLA regarding recommending and carrying out workflows and tasks on the technical phases and components of such projects.

MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES

• Supervise MLA Developers and the Systems Analyst and will be responsible for the performance management of their direct reports. This includes monitoring and evaluating job performance, as well as providing coaching, motivation and feedback on their performance.

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

Required

• Demonstrated experience coordinating projects and superior cross-functional project coordination skills
• Superior critical-thinking and problem solving skills
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills; ability to use hard data and metrics to back up assumptions, recommendations and drive actions
• Ability to work well collaboratively and independently on complex projects involving diverse participants, using informed judgment and clear communication to successfully complete tasks in a timely manner
• Demonstrated organizational, analytical, and independent problem-solving skills, with the ability to process a large quantity of work while maintaining a consistently high degree of accuracy.
• Facility with rapidly synthesizing new information and new workflows
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, both written and verbal, particularly the ability to offer guidance and criticism in a positive and constructive manner
• Demonstrated experience engaging with and influencing external collaborators and other internal departments
• Familiarity with information and technology concepts including metadata (e.g. PBCore), data formats (e.g. csv, XML, JSON), linked data (e.g. RDF) distributed version control (e.g. Git/GitHub), indexing (e.g. Solr), digital library software (e.g. Blacklight), databases (e.g. Mysql, FileMaker), and data access via APIs
• An appreciation for and an understanding of the public media landscape

Preferred

• 2-3 years’ experience coordinating successful projects
• Experience managing development teams in a scrum environment
• Experience with development and mapping of data models for repositories
• Experience managing repositories, including a strong understanding of Samvera solution bundles

EDUCATION

Highly preferred:  Master's degree in Library and Information Science or equivalent degree.

Certification (or desire to be certified) in Agile Project Management preferred.

WGBH is an equal opportunity employer. The community and audience we serve is diverse, and we wish to foster that diversity in our workplace. Toward that end, WGBH does not discriminate against individuals in hiring, employment or promotion on the basis of race, religion, color, sex/gender, gender identity and gender expression, age, marital status, national origin, sexual orientation, citizenship, handicap or disability, veteran or military status, political belief, pregnancy, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by law.